The Virgo Supercluster (Virgo SC) or Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the irregular supercluster that contains the Local Group, which in turn contains the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years). It is one of millions of superclusters in the observable Universe.
Beginning with the first large sample of nebulae published by William and Jo...
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The Virgo Supercluster (Virgo SC) or Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the irregular supercluster that contains the Local Group, which in turn contains the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years). It is one of millions of superclusters in the observable Universe.
Beginning with the first large sample of nebulae published by William and John Herschel in 1863, it was known that there is a marked excess of nebular fields in the constellation Virgo (near the north galactic pole). In the 1950s French-American astronomer Gérard Henri de Vaucouleurs was the first to argue that this excess represented a large-scale galaxy-like structure, coining the term "Local Supergalaxy" in 1953 which he changed to "Local Supercluster" (LSC) in 1958. Debate went on during the 1960s and 1970's as to whether the Local Supercluster (LS) was actually a structure or a chance alignment of galaxies. The...
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